The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced the second version of an open-source toolkit for the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the financial industry.
Led by the MAS, the toolkit, dubbed Veritas Toolkit version 2.0, is meant to provide guidance to firms offering financial products and services on the responsible use of AI and data analytics, through its assessment methodology named the Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (FEAT) principles.
According to the press release dated June 26, The Veritas Toolkit is the first responsible AI guideline developed specifically for the financial industry, in which version 1.0 was released in February 2022 with a focus on assessing fairness.
Accenture and Bank of China are the main developers of the toolkit, while BNY Mellon, DBS Bank (DBS), OCBC O39 Bank (OCBC), United Overseas Bank U11 Limited (UOB) contributed to the pilot testing of this toolkit. A total of 31 industry players are involved.
The consortium has also published a white paper with the findings from seven financial institutions that have tried this new methodology, including BNY Mellon, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, Singapore Life Ltd. (Singlife), Standard Chartered Bank and UOB.
The paper underscores the need for a consistent and robust responsible AI framework that spans geographies; a risk-based approach to determine the governance required for the AI use cases; and responsible AI practices and training for the new generation of AI professionals in the financial sector.
The MAS has also worked with some AI solutions providers such as IBM and SAS to integrate the Veritas toolkit, so that they can “better serve their financial sector customers”.
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS, said: “Given the rapid pace of developments in AI, it is critical that financial institutions have in place robust frameworks for the responsible use of AI. The Veritas Toolkit version 2.0 will enable financial institutions and FinTech firms to effectively assess their AI use cases for Fairness, Ethics, Accountability, and Transparency. This will help promote a responsible AI ecosystem."
